Zombies Bite
by Fullmetal Wetback
Summary: Can a stoned mechanic, an arrogant athlete, a reclusive fencer, a monophobic swordswoman, a cold medic, and their overachieving leader survive in a world where reanimated corpses have devoured any sense of normalcy? They soon find out that zombies are the least of their worries with delusional conquerors and murderous psychopaths on the loose trying to survive as well. Extra space.
1. High School Of The Dead

**A/N: **So, I've decided to do one of these. It's actually quite fun, even though I've only just started. This will have absolutely nothing to do with the _High School of the Dead_ anime/manga, other than the zombies part, so if you're looking for that, you've come to the wrong place. Still, you may as well stick around now that you're here.

Anyway, the OCs that I've decided to use, other than my own, come from **FallingSunset**, **FightForYourRightToLife**, **CrimsonButterfly07**, **metalProtagonist**, **shippofan2k**, and **BladeOfTheEclipse** so far. Not all of their OCs will be in the main group, but they _will _be an integral part of the story. And I'll still accept OCs if I find a place for them, in either another surviving group, as a lone wolf, a temporary member of the main group, or as an angry enemy who wants nothing more than to kill everyone and everything.

Either way, I'm still accepting OCs...anyway. Here's the first chapter. I hope I didn't screw it up too badly. Here ya go!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own shit.

**Chapter 1: High School of the Dead**

On the highest point on the tallest building in the small city of Ironwood, California, two teenagers stood at the edge of the roof and watched as the beginning of the end of the world unfolded below.

The boy, with wildly curly hair the color of root beer, stared down at the carnage with hard gray eyes. An old army field blouse swirled around him, and he pulled it closer to himself when the cool wind bit into him through his black t-shirt, shivering as a cold ball of fear tightened in his gut. This wasn't possible. It just couldn't be; these kinds of things only happened in movies and games; the dead weren't supposed to come back to life in reality!

As he witnessed his school being devoured by the undead from on high, he found that he couldn't force himself to look away as a group of creatures, appearing almost human (almost, but not quite, with sheets of flesh hanging from sinew and tendons, bone peeking out from ruined skin), tore apart the school janitor, Scruffy. The boy had to look away, not from squeamishness, but from guilt and anger. He wished that he'd gotten the chance to actually learn Scruffy's real name.

Now that his attention was diverted, he turned his gaze onto the other occupant of the roof. Her auburn hair was cut into a jagged bob, and her green eyes were wide with terror and disbelief. A light gray hooded sweater much too large for her willowy frame hid her black _Abbey Road_ shirt, and she hugged herself protectively, as though it would save her from whatever evil had been unleashed upon the world.

Beyond the school gates, the world burned. Plumes of black, oily smoke rippled through the already-polluted sky, leaving a brown, smoggy haze that turned the weak, late-winter sun into a morose, sickly yellow orb above them. From their vantage point, they could catch the sounds of sirens and screams, and the occasional distant explosion, followed by another column of smoke to drift heavenward, like penitent hands praying for God to save them all.

"Felix," the girl almost-whispered, her voice quavering slightly. The boy, Felix, turned back to her in surprise; this was very much unlike the girl who had befriended him nearly three months ago. "What are we going to do?"

Felix frowned, also acting wildly out of character. His name literally meant 'Happiness and Luck', but he didn't feel much like either at the moment. That shouldn't stop him from bringing a bit of normalcy back into the world, if only for his friend's sake. It was just a good thing that he was such a good actor, having kept up his facade for the better part of his life.

So, mustering up his grit, he forced out a playful grin, nudged her in the ribs, and said, "How about we get high, Torch? Maybe this is all a figment of your imagination from being too stressed out. Overachieving _does _have its downsides, y'know."

The deep scowl that marred her otherwise pretty features almost made him sigh in relief. Shock could never stand against a good joke, after all. Or anger, come to think of it.

"We're in the middle of the apocalypse and you want to get _stoned_?" the girl shrieked. "Jesus, Villalobos, I should've just left you alone when I found you up here. And stop calling me Torch! I've told you millions of times that my name is Serafina! Even Sera would do!"

The smirk that stretched Felix's lips wasn't all faked this time. It was so easy to get Sera riled up. "Don't get your panties in a twist, Firebug. Chill out."

"Chill out?" Sera repeated, her tone a bit shrill. "There are flesh-eating monsters down there and you want me to _chill out_? This is fucking insane! I don't...I don't know what to do! I-" Halfway through her breakdown, her voice gained a harsh edge of hysteria, and Felix sighed.

"Serafina McKenna." He said it as evenly as he could, resting his hands on both her shoulders to command her attention. Her eyes, wild and frightened, focused on his face almost desperately. "Calm down. Panicking is not going to do anything but waste time and energy. I know you're not some loser girly-girl who needs someone to spoon-feed her everything. Now chill the _fuck_ out and think for a second!"

While he spoke, he felt the rise and fall of her shoulders slow down until her breathing fell back into a regular rhythm and she wasn't at risk of hyperventilating. After taking a final, fortifying breath, Sera closed her eyes and let it out in a gusty sigh.

"Better?" Felix asked, a small smile playing at his lips.

She nodded, returning the smile. "Thanks." But as she cast her gaze out across the mayhem below, the smile slid from her face.

They didn't have to worry about much at the moment. The large stretch of roof they were on was above the fourth floor of Ironwood High School, and it was only accessible by way of a metal ladder that led down to the gymnasium roof, where only a few of the...creatures were stumbling around. Behind them was what had once been a poorly-placed storage shed before he'd commandeered it early in the year. Luckily, he'd managed to turn the shed into a haven for himself whenever high school life became too tedious (which was practically always to him), stocked with a few bedrolls, blankets, pillows, and even a mini-fridge stocked with munchies aplenty.

And for when he got bored of sleeping, he kept a small tool kit and some spare parts to keep his hands busy, as well as some...less legal supplies to stave off boredom. Felix had always persisted that his proudest accomplishment was planting and growing three plants of the species _cannabis sativa indica_ directly above the school's police liaison office, while Sera had always persisted that his proudest accomplishment was surviving past the age of ten with his obvious lack of self-preservation.

So the...creatures couldn't reach them, but neither could they get down without risking becoming so much bloody gore on the ground. Felix sighed and began to look around again. Students, teachers, and school staff were either running for their lives (in a scarily real sense) or being devoured. Some were fighting back, but they would eventually be overrun by the overwhelming numbers. It seemed as though whenever one of the creatures bit into a living being, the victim would turn into a flesh-addicted berserker with only death and destruction as a purpose.

A scream very close by made his head jerk in the direction of the gym. There, on the roof of the gym building, was a girl in gym clothes with long, dark hair flailing wildly behind her as she limped away from a number of the slow-moving figures with a dented metal bat in hand. His quick eyes spotted the open door which led down into the gymnasium itself, and more and more of the beasts were making their way up to the roof in their shuffling gait.

"Hey, that's Hailey Cook!" Sera suddenly said, leaning over the rail. "Yeah, look, see the blonde in her bangs? I'd recognize that anywhere!"

"Yeah, I have no idea who that is," Felix deadpanned. "You _do _remember that I've been in this school for all of three months, right?" As they watched, the girl spun on her heel and whacked the nearest creature in the head with her bat. It fell to the floor, and she paused a moment, only to shriek and start running again when it began to slowly get up.

Eventually, she hit the wall of the main building, only about five or six yards from where they were, and looked around at the beasts slowly boxing her in, and Felix ran into the shed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sera called after him. "She's gonna be zombie chow if we don't do something!"

Felix resisted flinching at the word 'zombie.' Of course he'd made the connection; he'd be stupid if he hadn't, having played all manner of video games in arcades and used his ninja skills to get into movie theaters across Texas as a young runaway back in the day. He didn't want to think of these creatures as zombies because that would just cement the fact that this was actually _real_. So instead, he reached behind the leafy cover of his marijuana plants and withdrew his most prized creation: a bong made from a three-foot-long, thick steel pipe. It was just heavy enough to bash in the skulls of those...things, with enough heft to allow him some breathing room if things got out of hand.

"Stay up here, Torch," he said, running over to the ladder with his makeshift weapon in hand. "Shout out if you see those things start to flank me, got it?" And without waiting for an answer, slid down to aid this Cook girl.

**[HEY, IT'S A PAGE BREAK]**

For Hailey Morgan Cook, the day had started out as normally as one could expect. She'd gotten up, taken a shower, and gone down make breakfast for her sister Miki and Miki's husband, Akira. After chowing down on a delicious meal together, Miki had dropped Hailey off at school, where she'd met up with her friends and gone to gym class.

And then all hell broke loose. Halfway through warm-up stretches, Mr. Wilson, the chemistry teacher, had stumbled in with a horrible wound on his face where it looked as though a wild animal had taken a chunk out of his cheek. Mrs. Nguyen, her P.E. teacher as well as the tennis coach, had immediately rushed forward to help him to the small room where medical supplies were stored in case of emergencies.

In the split-second when Mrs. Nguyen had reached out to grasp Mr. Wilson by the shoulder to lead him away, the injured teacher's head had snapped to the side and bitten the coach's middle fingers off, leaving three fountains of crimson in the wake of his teeth. Poor Mrs. Nguyen hadn't even gotten the chance to scream as Mr. Wilson had descended upon her and proceeded to rip her throat out with his jaws, a wild look in his eyes, sclera all red and bloodshot, while his skin seemed to have gained a yellowish tint.

The class couldn't have descended into panic more quickly than if they'd been told that a nuclear bomb had been launched to their precise location. Hailey, for her part, hadn't panicked. Instead, she glanced around and located the equipment locker, already open and ready for the day's classes and rushed to it, bumping past her classmates already heading for the door. Unfortunately, whatever Mr. Wilson was, he wasn't the only one. Even while some of the students managed to escape, even more were brought down by these creatures (zombies, her mind supplied).

After taking stock of everything in the storage locker, she grabbed the baseball bat. Not many people knew this, but her grandfather had taught her how to use a sword from a young age, and even after her mother died, and she moved in with her sister, she still drilled herself in the forms of kenjutsu, and a metal bat was close enough to a sword for her.

But when she turned back, she saw only the berserkers, feasting on the remains of the unluckier students. Another thing many people did not know about Hailey was that she had a crippling fear of being alone. And while she was most definitely not alone in the gym, she _was _the only living human, which was close enough to set off her monophobia.

Luckily, she hadn't attracted the attention of the beasts, and she forced herself to head to the bleachers, which had thankfully been left open due to the upcoming basketball game that would have been held that night. She crawled in and wedged herself as close as she could inside and only then allowed herself to succumb to the shivering horror of loneliness.

Eventually, after an unknown amount of time, she felt a shudder go through the entire frame of the bleachers and felt the benches begin to grind backward. Only reflex saved her from being crushed between the closing benches. Who had pushed the button? Who had made the bleachers start to close?

_No,_ she thought, gathering her wits. _Questions later. Now, get the heck out of the way of being crushed._ So she dashed out of the scissoring steel girders that held up the bleacher's structure and headed for the dwindling light at the end of the quickly-closing tunnel. For a brief moment, she pictured herself as Indiana Jones, racing a boulder to freedom.

As the gap between the nearly-closed benches and the wall became smaller and smaller, Hailey threw herself the last few feet and executed a perfect dive-roll to spare herself from landing like a pancake on her stomach. Surging to her feet with her bat in hand, she looked around and her face drained of color. One of the creatures had bumped against the button, and the heavy grinding sound of the retracting bleachers had drawn the attention of the dozen or so of the things still in the gym.

Hailey almost froze up. She was so close to losing herself in her monophobia once more, but she spotted a door at the top of a staircase leading up from the catwalk above the opposite set of bleachers. She could do it. She knew she could. And so she dashed forward, dodging the grabbing hands of the creatures while heading for the other set of bleachers which, thankfully, were still out. She took the benches two at a time, which, in hindsight, proved to be an almost fatal decision.

Three-fourths of the way up, as she made a flying leap to the next bench, her leading foot slipped just enough for it to twist around, causing a sharp cry of pain to escape her lips. Terror and adrenaline allowed her to struggle up the rest of the way, across the catwalk, and then up the staircase that led to the door. She pushed it open triumphantly, but as she took in the roof's occupants, another eight or nine of the beasts, she let out a frustrated shriek.

She limped as fast as her twisted (probably sprained) ankle would allow, turning once to bash the closest of the things in the head with her bat, only to groan in dismay when it only got up with barely a pause. On her wounded foot, she could move just fast enough to avoid the slow-moving creatures, but she soon found herself backed up against the sheer cliff of the main building, which stretched up three floors higher than the gym.

This was it. She was going to die, eaten by what had once been her classmates and teachers. Would she see her mother again? What would Grandfather say when they met again? Would they be proud that she'd at least tried?

She was torn from her thoughts by a hoarse voice shouting, "Hey, you undead fucks! Come get some Mexican food, you pieces of shit!"

As one organism, the creatures' heads swiveled toward the voice along with Hailey's. A boy, maybe a year older than her with a wild shock of dark curly hair, wearing faded and threadbare clothes, and holding a piece of metal (was that a _bong_?) was waving his arms and making a spectacle out of himself as the creatures began to shuffle over his way.

The boy's cloudy-gray eyes met her blue ones, and he gestured with his weapon (drug paraphernalia) to the corner of the main building. "Head over there! There's a ladder that leads up to the top of the main building. I'll keep 'em distracted, and Sera'll help you up!"

For a moment, she was too stunned to move, but when she caught sight of one of the stragglers grabbing for her, she cracked it over the head and limped her way in the direction he'd indicated, thanking whatever powers there may be for that guy, whoever he was.

**[WHEN SUDDENLY, A WILD PAGE BREAK APPEARS]**

_What in the hell was I thinking?_ mused Felix as he dodged another pair of reaching hands and smashed the rounded end of his bong into the creature's face. _Wasn't that Coach Nguyen?_

With reflexes born from years on the streets of Houston, Texas, he twisted out of the way of a gnashing mouth and broke the perpetrator's mandible before backing up to give himself some breathing room.

Zombies. Obviously, that's what they were, now that he'd seen some of them shrug of wounds that would've killed a normal human, or at least stalled them for longer than it took to get back to their feet. Hell, he'd landed a blow that had literally caved in the chest of one of the beasts, but it had only stumbled a moment, then grabbed for him again.

Head shots. That's what made these things stay down. He'd taken out four of them already with his trusty bong (and boy, was he glad that he'd made it _now_), but there were still about seven of them still on the roof, with more trickling in through the open door to the gym. He had to stop them from coming up, or he'd be overwhelmed before the girl could get out of their greedy hands, and then he'd have died for no good reason (and _fuck_ if he'd let that happen).

So, after dropping the zombies with quick kicks to the back of the knees (geez, these things had worse balance than a drunk with an inner ear problem), he headed to the doorway. One of the things was just coming up the last of the steps, with probably half a dozen behind it, and Felix grinned. If he had to do this, he might as well make it fun.

Raising his foot before him, he thrust it out, slamming the ball of his foot into the creature's sternum with a roaring, "THIS...IS...SPARTA!" The lead zombie toppled backward, falling into the one behind it, which teetered and dropped onto the one behind _it_. It was like watching an undead domino trail, but he refrained from watching in lieu of shutting the door quickly and knocking the feet out from under the beast who'd been trying to sneak up on him before squashing its skull with his heavy traveling boots.

Grunting, he dodged the remaining six and slowly led them to the edge, walking parallel to the low railing in order to get them in a row. Then he proceeded to either kick, push, or slam his bong into them to shove them off the roof, where they landed with six wet thuds.

With that done, he looked up to where his haven was and saw Sera giving him a thumbs-up, indicating that she'd gotten Hailey up to safety.

Sighing in relief, he shouted, "How's her leg?"

"Twisted ankle, nothing major!" Sera yelled back. "You wouldn't happen to have any Ace bandages in this place, would ya?"

Grinning, Felix began climbing the ladder back up. "I practically _live_ in this place, Torch. 'Course I've got medical supplies."

Together, they entered the shed, where Hailey was looking around in wonder, sitting on one of the crates he used as chairs. When she caught sight of them, she tried to stand, only to wince in pain and settle back down, eyes on Felix. "Thank you," she mumbled. "I...I would have been eaten if it hadn't been for you."

Felix shrugged, waving off the gratitude. "No worries, _chica_. You're just lucky my bong's not made out of glass, or we'd have both been screwed." As he talked, he opened one of the cupboards he'd set up himself and withdrew a bottle of water, a roll of Ace bandages, and a medicine capsule. He tossed her the bottle and the medicine, saying, "Take two of those for the pain and swelling. I'm Felix Villalobos, by the way. And Torch seems to know you already."

Hailey caught them with a grateful nod and a bright smile. "Hailey Cook." And after a questioning glance at Sera, she nodded. "Yes, Serafina's my partner in Home Economics class."

"Hold out your foot," he directed, and Hailey complied, sticking her injured leg into his lap. Felix gave Sera an amused grin while Hailey popped two of the small tablets into her mouth before taking a drink of water. "You take Home Ec.?"

"Yeah, but she's not really good at cooking," Hailey mused as Felix began to wrap the bandage around her foot. "Or sewing. Or washing clothes, for that matter..."

"_Thank_ you, Hailey," Sera snapped irritably while Felix chuckled. She waited for him to finish making sure the bandage would support the ankle before whacking him in the head. "And it's harder than it looks. I'd like to see you try to get a two-day old chocolate stain out of a white blouse."

"Haven't you ever heard of Oxy-Clean and bleach?" Felix asked with a raised eyebrow. "Geez, I thought you were supposed to be _smart_."

After taking a second to try coming up with a proper come-back and failing, Sera instead responded with, "That's beside the point. We're stuck on the roof of a zombie-infested school with only a few provisions that probably won't last too long and a shelter that'll barely fit all three of us."

"So, what should we do, then?" Felix replied. It wasn't a challenge, which surprised Sera. He just looked at her expectantly, as though she were the one in charge.

"Why are you looking at me?" she wondered. "This is _your _little haven, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I'm just the pothead mechanic," he answered with a small smile. "I'm the furthest thing from leadership material you can find. _You_, on the other hand, are an expert martial artist with straight A's and a better strategic mind that Napoleon himself. So get to strategizing, Torch."

"Who does he keep calling you that, Serafina?" Hailey asked curiously.

"Don't ask," Sera grunted, settling down onto a crate and thinking. "I need some concentration if the stoner over there wants me to come up with a plan."

The other girl fell silent, but Felix gave her a reassuring grin. "Don't worry. She's always like this when she's forced to use her mind."

Hailey smiled back, then gestured around at the room in general. "You said you practically lived here," she pointed out.

Felix rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, it's my home away from...well, I guess the technical term is _home_. I'm here more than I am there, though, so...yeah, this is basically where I live. It's not so bad, either. I've got the showers in the gym, the Dumpsters right over there," he jerked his thumb to the right, "and free electricity so long as nobody finds this place."

"Why don't you stay at home?" Hailey asked, then instantly regretted it when her new acquaintance's smile dropped, replaced by a grimace for the briefest of moments.

He forced a smile that looked almost painful. "My dad's a jerk. I think it's where I get my jerkiness from, but Torch says that I can't blame it on him."

"And your mom?" Hailey inquired tentatively.

This time, Felix didn't even bother to try to make himself smile. Instead, his eyes moved to one of the small windows and out at the bruised sky. "She died a long time ago. I probably wouldn't be living in a horribly-placed storage shed if she was still around," he added with a wry smile as his eyes cut back to Hailey's.

Nodding sadly, Hailey mumbled, "My mom's dead, too." She let out a surprised, reluctant giggle when Felix wiggled his fingertips against the exposed part of her foot's sole, where she was especially ticklish.

"C'mon, Cook," he said with a raised eyebrow. "We can't be having a pity part until we find a way out of this mess."

"Luckily," Sera said, standing suddenly as she peered out of one of the other windows excitedly. "I think I know a way out of here!"

**A/N: **And there you have it, duckies! The end of the first chapter! Tell me what you think, or give me a new OC. Either way, PLEASE REVIEW! I NEED FEEDBACK! I'M A ZOMBIE AND YOUR REVIEWS ARE FLESH! REVIEEEEEEEEEEEWWS!


	2. Death and All His Friends

**A/N:** So, here we are for the second installment of Zombies Bite. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who reviewed and favorited this thing and all that good stuff. Um, not sure if there's anything else, but...oh well.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own shit. This is just another fanfiction.

**Chapter 2: Death and All His Friends**

"Okay, I love you, sis. Have fun at school," said the twenty-something man smiling at his younger sister in the passenger seat. He sighed imperceptibly when Alice Colthurst simply nodded and undid the seat belt, slinging her bag over a shoulder as she exited the car

As he drove off back to the home he shared with Alice, Louis Colthurst fell into the ponderings of a concerned older brother. Alice had never been what one would call the sharing type, even as a young girl, but a cruel life had taken its toll on the poor girl. Hell, if he was being honest, Louis himself had a bucket-load of problems of his own, but he could always suck it up. His main priority since the death of their father had been Alice's wellbeing, both physical and mental, and while he'd managed to keep them both well-fed and clothed in pretty good fashion, he just wasn't properly equipped to help a poor little girl who'd lost her mother to some unknown disease and her father to a horrible car accident when he could hardly deal with his own issues.

And that's what hurt the most. Louis always felt his shortcomings very acutely, and worried that his failings weren't just screwing up his life, but that of his precious sister's as well. Maybe she would have been better off in the hands of child services, rather than a fresh-from-college pencil pusher with an entry-level salary.

Shaking his head to rid himself of such morbid thoughts, he slowed his car to a stop at a red light. From the corner of his eye, Louis noticed a man who appeared to have even worse luck than he did, shambling in what could be better described as rags than clothes. A low, guttural moan issued from the man's mouth, and a stab of sympathy pierced Louis' heart. There was always someone worse off than him, wasn't there?

He reached down into the center console and grabbed some change, but when he leaned out the window and held out the handful of coins, the homeless man bypassed the hand and sank his teeth into Louis' forearm. For a second, the young man couldn't believe that had just happened, but as the scent of decay and destitution washed over him, he was shaken out of his stupor by the lance of pain stabbing up his arm and into his shoulder.

"Shit!" he cursed loudly, gunning the engine and taking of, heedless of the still-red light. He circled around the block and headed back to the high school, thanking his lucky stars that his mother's illness had spurred Alice into studying medicine, and that even now, she was probably in the school's infirmary. Glancing down, he grimaced at the oozing wound the bum had inflicted on him, and searched with his free hand for something with alcohol in it; who knew what sort of diseases had been festering in the hobo's filthy mouth?

He finally came up with a bottle of antibacterial gel. Better than nothing, he thought as he squirted some onto a napkin and pressed it to the wound, hissing in pain and swerving slightly as his arm jerked to the side reflexively. With skill born from desperation and pain, Louis managed to park his car perfectly in front of the school and rushed in, following the familiar path to the nurse's room, having gotten into plenty of fights in his days at Ironwood High.

When he entered, Alice was alone, refilling a jar with cotton balls. Her blue-gray eyes widened when they landed on the bloody napkin he was holding to the wound and ushered him onto the bed, the wax paper crinkling underneath him.

"What happened?" she asked even as she withdrew some gauze and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

"Tried to give a bum some change and he bit me," Louis answered, wrinkling his nose distastefully. Alice rolled her eyes and gestured for him to hold out his arm.

"Now, this'll sting a little," Alice warned, and Louis was reminded of all the times he himself had tended to Alice's scrapes and cuts obtained through childhood rambunctiousness. Nevertheless, he winced as the liquid fell on the wound and began hissing as though it were boiling on his skin. He watched as his younger sister expertly wrapped the newly-cleaned wound, then moved to a locked cabinet. "Normally, we don't give the students painkillers, but..." she shrugged with a small smile. "...you're not a student, are you?"

"I should hope not," Louis replied, grinning back despite the throbbing wound. "Thanks a bunch, Doll. You sure know your stuff."

"I'd suggest that you didn't go to work today, just in case," Alice said, slapping a smiley-face sticker over the wound and causing him to bite his tongue lest he scream like a little girl. "And I told you I don't like that nickname."

Louis poked her in the ribs. "You know you do," he shot back playfully. "So, how long d'you think I can hang out here and keep you away from classes?"

Alice gave him a rare full smile, "As long as it takes for Mrs. Wheatley to sort out whatever it is that got her called out to the front gate, I guess."

**[THIS IS A PAGE BREAK]**

Michael Daly wasn't one to brag. Sure, he was pretty badass, and he sometimes espoused how much of an awesome dude he was to those around him, but that was self-confidence, not arrogance. Despite a pretty screwed-up childhood, Mike was of the opinion that he was a fairly well-adjusted individual, and the fact that he was popular at school was only a plus. Of course, much of that celebrity had to do with his exceptional natural athleticism and charming good looks, but he didn't bother himself with inconsequential details.

Therefore, it was with much confusion (and no small amount of jealousy) that he found himself watching his long-time crush, Serafina McKenna climbing up the administration building from his seat near the window of A.P. Biology class.

At the start of the school year, he felt that he was in good standing to start dating who he believed to be the hottest woman on the planet (barring Scarlett Johansen, of course). Sera, of course, seemed partial to his presence, and while she had, on more than one occasion, stated quite vehemently that she did not want to go out with him, Mike was certain that she was only playing hard to get.

Enter Felix Villalobos: the bane of Mike's existence. About a month into the semester, some kid who had the appearance and fashion sense of some common vagabond came from who the hell knew where, sitting at the back of every class he and Mike shared, which was every single damn one, acting as cool and nonchalant as some uber-hipster with the telltale reek of weed smoke draped around him like a well-worn jacket, and all the girls instantly took notice of his don't-give-a-flying-purple-fuck attitude.

But Mike really didn't care about those other girls. True, having them all hanging onto his every word was pretty cool, but he'd rather have the attention of Sera than every single chick at Ironwood High. Except...

...except one day, Sera wasn't at the lunch table all the 'in-crowd' (student body government, athletes, cheerleaders, etc.) was wont to sit at. Mike chalked it up to her leaving early for a doctor's appointment, or some family thing, but she was there in fifth period right after the lunch bells rang, and when he asked her about it, she simply shrugged and said it wasn't important.

But one day, after a couple of weeks without Sera being where she belonged, Mike decided to follow her, and much to his surprise, found that she'd taken to hanging out with motherfucking Villalobos on top of the school!

At first, he'd figured she was just being nice to the new kid, who by all rights was pretty much a loner, despite all the female attention he received. But as time wore on and Sera showed no signs of ceasing her fraternization with the resident pothead, Mike had taken action. He'd warned her that rumors would begin to spread if she continued absconding with Villalobos to do who knew what up there, but she'd countered that what other people thought of her meant little, if anything, in the long run, especially high school students. Then he'd switched tactics by trying to get her to hang out with him instead, but she just smiled and told him that 'Felix' was a cool guy, and that he was really funny when he wasn't being so annoying.

His final gambit had been to slander Villalobos and saying that he was corrupting her with his logic-retarding stoner-ness, which in hindsight, had been a huge mistake. Sera's famed temper had flared up immediately, and she championed Felix's cause with great vehemence, telling Mike that he shouldn't talk badly about someone he didn't even know, and that Felix was a much more complex person than Mike gave him credit for.

And that was when Mike truly became jealous and started harassing Felix. He'd even gone so far as to get some of his football buddies to go with him and threaten Villalobos, and was sorely disappointed at the outcome. The stupid stoner had the audacity to laugh in their faces when they'd cornered him behind the gym, then performed some insane free-running that got him out of arms' reach of Mike's group, chuckling all the while.

Eventually, Mike had given up and tried to mend fences with Sera, which had taken nearly two months. But now, as he watched Sera climbing the metal ladder that led from the top of the gym to Felix's little hidey-hole, the envious beast within him surged upward and roared defiantly. He would not lose his girl to some punk-ass little bastard who was quick on his feet.

Raising his hand, he caught the teacher's attention. "Mr. Van de Velde, can I go use the restroom?"

The Biology teacher, an aging yet surprisingly spry man with salt-and-pepper hair and a scar across his forehead, raised an eyebrow. "McKenna's already using the pass, Daly. You'll just have to hold it."

Mike, no stranger to white-lies and half-truths, affected a slightly embarrassed air as he replied, "Ah, it's not exactly something I can hold in, Mr. V." The other students chuckled, and the teacher rolled his eyes but nevertheless scribbled something on a scrap of paper.

"Hurry it up, then, Daly," Mr. Van de Velde said, holding out the paper, which Daly snatched up gleefully. "And remember to wipe. I don't want you stinking up my classroom with your skid-marks."

Mike opened the door to gales of laughter, intending to make a beeline to the gym, but was halted by a figure in the doorway. Mike almost shoved past, but was halted by the horrible odor coming from...Ms. Hopkins? The traffic attendant who sat outside the school and made sure those on foot were able to cross the streets safely had apparently abandoned her post in favor of coming into the school, and the reason was blindingly obvious. A chunk of flesh had been ripped right off of her face, marring what had once been relatively pretty and turning into something more grotesque than anything Mike had seen in the most gruesome horror flicks imaginable.

She made a grab at him, and he instinctively backed up, leading the poor woman back into the classroom, causing a general gasp from the students and screams from some of the more squeamish. When Ms. Hopkins swiped at Mike a second time, he stepped behind her, looping his arms around her and slamming her into the wall next to the door.

"Calm down, Ms. Hopkins!" he shouted, but she only made a gurgling, rasping sound in response, struggling against his hold.

"Don't hurt her, Daly!" Mr. Van de Velde shouted as he reached for his phone and dialed. "Yes, security? We need someone at Room 23, right now. The traffic lady's gone insane!"

Hopkins continued to struggle, so much so that her arm snapped clean off with a sound that turned Mike's stomach, and he barely managed to avoid the bony spear her arm had become, backing away quickly. When she lunged at him again, he grabbed her remaining arm and tossed her away from him, toward the slumped over form of...who was that, Dave Vincent?

The one-armed woman crashed into Dave's desk, jolting him back into the world of the conscious, and he shook his head as Hopkins unsteadily rose to her feet once more, that same choking noise directed toward the groggy teen.

But when she tried to grab him, Dave moved out of his seat with uncanny speed, allowing her to crash into the desk again, this time snapping off one of the forelegs which held the desk up.

While Hopkins was having trouble disentangling herself from the fallen desk, Dave peered down at her before looking out the window. Mike saw his face turn white as he turned back to the class and said, to the room in general, "Did the zombie apocalypse kick off while I was asleep?"

And that was when it all clicked into place for Mike, like one of those sliding-panel puzzles. While Mike was wrestling with the concept of a zombie apocalypse actually happening, Dave grabbed up the wooden leg and, with a single, quick thrust, shoved the tip through Ms. Hopkins' eye socket, and her struggling form stiffened before relaxing with a final gurgle.

Most of the students had backed away from Hopkins, some staring out the window in abject horror while others simply broke down and huddled themselves into fetal crouches. Mr. Van de Velde stood instantly, calling order and telling everyone to calm down in a loud voice Mike had never heard issuing from his teacher's mouth before.

"Okay, kids, this is not a drill," he boomed. "Grab your things and get ready to run."

Mike stared at the man for a moment while the others were shocked into action, grabbing their bags and shoving pencils into pockets or pulling on jackets. Dave just stared down at Ms. Hopkins' still form while dark brown, viscous liquid dripped from the end of his makeshift weapon.

"Everyone ready? Alright, follow me, stay close, and if you see anyone that looks like...like Ms. Hopkins over there, call out, and we'll adjust course accordingly. Let's move out, now."

The students huddled close to their teacher, who led them down the hallways with the purpose and poise of an army commander. At least, until they ran into a large herd of the things halfway to the nearest exit. With creepy synchronity, every head, intact and ruined alike, turned in their direction, and a horrendous groan ripped from the throats of the creatures as they began shambling in their direction. Quickly back-tracking, the group almost cried in dismay when a second block of the undead headed their way from a second direction.

Soon, they were being shepherded by the two groups into a corner, and Mike withdrew a bowie knife he kept on his person at all times while other students pulled various school implements from their bags and Dave readied his desk leg.

"Kids," Mr. Van de Velde said in an eerily calm voice. "When I tell you to, run like all hell. Get through the windows and keep going." He turned his head and gave them a kind smile. "It was an honor teaching all of you. Now GO!" And then he charged the horde of zombies, bare-handed and with a cry of rage and hate tearing from his lips.

Dave smashed the nearest windows, and the rest of the students began piling out, some tearing their clothes and skin to shreds on the sharp edges of broken glass. Van de Velde's momentum carried him halfway into the crowd of creatures before they were upon him, and his angry, defiant yell quickly transformed into screeches of pain as he was literally eaten alive.

Mike turned away, but he couldn't block the horrible noise, and he used his teacher's distraction to help the other students through the windows. When the last student was through, Mike and Dave glanced at each other and came to a silent accord. Outside was hardly better than being inside this charnel house, but it afforded more freedom of movement than the cramped corridors of the school building.

They jumped out the window.

**[THIS IS ALSO A PAGE BREAK]**

Alice had known fear before. It would be impossible not to, living in a world such as the one she resided in. She'd been scared when her mother smiled and told her everything would be alright, even knowing that nothing would be right again. She'd been scared when they lowered her father's sealed casket into the cold ground. If she was being honest, she'd been scared of her Calculus test last week.

But as she watched the small forms pouring out of the street and into the school, stopping every once in a while to munch on the poor souls unlucky enough to fall into their jaws, Alice could admit for the first time in her life that she was downright terrified. This was only compounded by the state her brother, her only living blood relative left, was in.

Minutes after she'd cleaned his wound and wrapped it up, he'd broken out in a fever, which only kept rising steadily with each passing second. He was still cognizant, but every now and then, he'd mutter something to their mother or father, both of whom were long-dead.

She felt him shuffle up next to her, his breathing shallow and brittle, and together they stared down at the unfolding madness below.

Alice was startled when she heard Louis chuckle. It wasn't his normal, light-hearted laugh, the one she heard almost constantly at home. This one was raspy and tinged with hysteria common to fever victims. She turned to him with a raised eyebrow, and he sighed.

"Do you know what's happening, sis?" he asked, continuing on directly afterward. "Those things down there are zombies. Honest-to-God zombies, Doll. And you know what? I got bit by one of them!"

He laughed again, this time more natural than before. "I'm gonna turn into one of them soon. The fever, the hysteria. At first, I just thought I was septic, but that can't be it. I suppose I should have someone destroy my brain before I can manage to reanimate, huh?"

Alice didn't respond at first. Her brother was talking utter nonsense, but at the same time...no! How dare he scare her like this? It would be just like him to pull some stupid prank on her.

"This isn't funny, Louis," she ground out between clenched teeth.

The smile dropped from Louis' face instantly. "You're right, Doll, it's not. It's the furthest thing from funny I've ever experienced. I can feel it, y'know? It's already taking hold in me, and if I die and reanimate, then I'll come after you if you're still close by. And I refuse to let that happen, Alice. I will not be the reason you die."

He looked around the infirmary and settled on an IV stand, which he quickly disassembled so that he was holding a long steel rod in his hand.

"What are you-?" Alice began, but with a quick, powerful swing, the pole smashed through the window, showering the creatures below with falling glass. It was one of those floor-to-ceiling windows, four stories above the ground. Louis stepped up to the gaping hole and looked down, then turned back to Alice.

"I won't be the death of you, Alice," he said sadly, "but I was wondering if you'd be the death of me?"

Alice understood immediately, and almost instantly disregarded it. "No," she whispered. "I can't do that."

"Not even if you'd be saving me?" Louis retorted. "You want to be a doctor, right? Well, sometimes, a doctor has to make a hard choice. This is just practice. Please, Alice. I'm not sure I'm strong enough to make the jump, and I'm terrified that I'll be weak enough to allow you to care for me until whatever this is claims me."

Alice couldn't believe her ears. Louis, not strong? For her entire life, she had looked up to her brother, the one who had taken care of her after their parents had died, someone she believed infallible, who possessed more strength than anyone she knew. And here he was, admitting to her his weakness. But she couldn't just kill him! Even if...

...it saved him...

Slowly, Alice walked up to Louis, stared into his eyes, and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. She felt his arms embrace her briefly, squeezing once.

"Love you sis. Be strong for me."

Blinking back tears, Alice replied, "I love you, too."

And she pushed him.

A/N: And there we have it. Three more members of the group have been introduced, and there are two more to go. Next chapter, we'll meet Cassie and Nero, and everyone gets the hell out of Dodge! So...yeah. See ya next time! And don't forget to review! PLEEEEEEAAAAZZZZZEEE!


	3. Admission of Defeat

Hey, everyone. So...I've been thinking about this for a very long time, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I can't keep writing fanfiction at the present time. There's too much bullshit going on in my life right now, and I have to deal with all of that before I can even think about frolicking in the fields of fandoms. Maybe sometime in the future, I'll start writing some more, but as of right now, it's just not an option.

Please don't hate me, even though it's fully in your rights to do so. I just had a very close relative pass on, which isn't reason enough to be deleting my profile, but coupled with the fact that my oldest and dearest friend killed himself on Valentine's Day...well, you get the idea.

To all of you who have favorited, followed, or reviewed my stories, thank you. Thank you _so_ much for all the wonderful things and constructive criticisms you've offered me. Also, I apologize with all my heart that I won't be able to continue these tales that you enjoyed, or that I might have disappointed you with this news.

On that note, I would be fully willing to let any of you take the helm and adopt any of my stories. I would hate for my fanfics to die; I can't keep up with them, but I put a lot of effort into some of them, while others have just begun, and it breaks my heart that I won't be the one to finish them.

If anyone wants to adopt, please PM me so I can check out your own writing. Be warned, some of these fics have minds of their own, and are very difficult to wrestle into submission; trust me, I know from experience.

Other than that, I wish all of you luck in life,

Fullmetal Wetback


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